Spotlighting Pan-African Poetry

Biography

Only time will tell

Only time will tell

If I was born to live
Rise above the stars
Drown in the river of nowhere
Get masticated by crocodiles
Be an outcast in the planet
If my smile was born to last
Only time will tell

I stare to the future with glowing pupils
Willing to see a bulb preceding my giant steps
Illuminating the darkness ahead of me
Knowing a brighter future is not guaranteed
If I was born to meet my dreams
Open hollows to see oranges across the sea
Replacing all the lemons I have tasted before
If I was born to befriend a fertile land
Only time will tell

We are extremely anguished characters
People of color
Orbiting around history
Dreaming to be free someday
Narrating our stories with unfinished tongues that are still waiting
To be glued by our forefathers’ words of wisdom
We were shackled in the slave coffle
Kidnapped to sail through a raging sea
Leaving the land of the burnt skin people
400 years ago
If Africa is the cradle of mankind
Only time will tell

We were told that we are genetically inferior
Uncivilized creatures on earth
Culturally barbaric
Cursed by Noah in the bible
Descendants of Ham’s blackness
Born to be paupers, serfs, slaves and prisoners
If we really evolved from apes
Only time will tell

If God is black or white
Only time will tell

If Steve Bantu Biko killed himself
Only time will tell

If Africans were born to feed out of gangsterism
Hustle in dark corners
Spines aching
Because of being sex workers
Thrown in the ghetto dustbins to rot
And get psychologically and spiritually demolished by demons
If we were born to be thugs, prostitutes, barbarians, junkies, bitches and witches
Whose soul congest jail cells
If we were born to live for something or nothing
Only time will tell

Apartheid Rags
Lambs will have to sacrifice the wool
Shear it for us
African sons and daughters who embody their spirits with rags
Rags that are filled with dust
They are like bushes cut down by hurricanes
Logs, leaves, stems and roots lying everywhere
Wounded wounds are howling with silent voices
But the ears of this country are sealed
We clothe wounds with dishonest smiles concealing the origins of pain
We feel ashamed to commune our Negroid faces to the world
Because there are people who look at us as filthy beggars
I lock my spirit in solitude
And soliloquize riddles over indigenous rhythms
Birthing new seasons
Knitting a new fabric
New clothes to cover rags worn by this black nation
Cardiac rags
Hearts that had been brutally butchered by apartheid abattoirs
We are the children whose hearts are covered with apartheid rags
But we become disillusioned by mediocrity
Can’t we buy a new fabric?
New clothes
Or build a bulwark to protect hearts have been bulldozed
When the moon crawled
When we threw stones
Escaping tombstones
Located in the hands of racist cruel cops.
Now Azania has been depraved
When you butchered Black, Indian and Colored slaves
Who got charmed by seductive graves
I see these rags worn by homeless people
Then I close my eyes and reflect
I am acquainted with rags
I once saw these rags in my mother’s womb
They anticipated my birth, my breath and death
Today my heart wears rags that are still waiting to be knitted by humane hands of my forefathers land
We have beautiful sad songs unsung
Located in the bosom of wounded souls
Those who lost their loved ones by guns in political crimes and in moonless slums
Hear these songs recited by poets over esoteric drums
The laundry of this country is filled with rags that were once worn by our ancestors
When this African continent was colonized
Sold by common minds
In those old times
We know who tore the fabric
We conscentise with verbal needles to knit these rags
We no longer a nation of sub-humans, baboons and barbaric baffoons
Because even baboons do fall in love with their beauty like Narcissus
They genuflect on the banks of history
And bath faces with Robert Sobukhwe , Tsetsi Mashinini,Marcus Garvey and Steve Biko’ blood
Seeking for Black Conciousness
They let the blood to dribble
Wet their hairy bodies
They rise with the new dawn and fly
With broken wings in the cosmos with eyes transfixed to the soil
Sons of the soil
Enlightening the land of their forefathers
My blackness is no longer a carpet to stone
But a golden stepping stone
I am in need of a black pigmentation
So I exhume Kwame Nkrumah’s body
Skin his face
Situate it under my sole
It becomes my Black Stepping Stone
And throw my eyes beyond the rags of colonialism
Oppression
Bondage
Slavery
And Apartheid
These eyes dilate to see a new black fabric

If I was born to live
Rise above the stars
Drown in the river of nowhere
Get masticated by crocodiles
Be an outcast in the planet
If my smile was born to last
Only time will tell

I stare to the future with glowing pupils
Willing to see a bulb preceding my giant steps
Illuminating the darkness ahead of me
Knowing a brighter future is not guaranteed
If I was born to meet my dreams
Open hollows to see oranges across the sea
Replacing all the lemons I have tasted before
If I was born to befriend a fertile land
Only time will tell

We are extremely anguished characters
People of color
Orbiting around history
Dreaming to be free someday
Narrating our stories with unfinished tongues that are still waiting
To be glued by our forefathers’ words of wisdom
We were shackled in the slave coffle
Kidnapped to sail through a raging sea
Leaving the land of the burnt skin people
400 years ago
If Africa is the cradle of mankind
Only time will tell

We were told that we are genetically inferior
Uncivilized creatures on earth
Culturally barbaric
Cursed by Noah in the bible
Descendants of Ham’s blackness
Born to be paupers, serfs, slaves and prisoners
If we really evolved from apes
Only time will tell

If God is black or white
Only time will tell

If Steve Bantu Biko killed himself
Only time will tell

If Africans were born to feed out of gangsterism
Hustle in dark corners
Spines aching
Because of being sex workers
Thrown in the ghetto dustbins to rot
And get psychologically and spiritually demolished by demons
If we were born to be thugs, prostitutes, barbarians, junkies, bitches and witches
Whose soul congest jail cells
If we were born to live for something or nothing
Only time will tell

Apartheid Rags
Lambs will have to sacrifice the wool
Shear it for us
African sons and daughters who embody their spirits with rags
Rags that are filled with dust
They are like bushes cut down by hurricanes
Logs, leaves, stems and roots lying everywhere
Wounded wounds are howling with silent voices
But the ears of this country are sealed
We clothe wounds with dishonest smiles concealing the origins of pain
We feel ashamed to commune our Negroid faces to the world
Because there are people who look at us as filthy beggars
I lock my spirit in solitude
And soliloquize riddles over indigenous rhythms
Birthing new seasons
Knitting a new fabric
New clothes to cover rags worn by this black nation
Cardiac rags
Hearts that had been brutally butchered by apartheid abattoirs
We are the children whose hearts are covered with apartheid rags
But we become disillusioned by mediocrity
Can’t we buy a new fabric?
New clothes
Or build a bulwark to protect hearts have been bulldozed
When the moon crawled
When we threw stones
Escaping tombstones
Located in the hands of racist cruel cops.
Now Azania has been depraved
When you butchered Black, Indian and Colored slaves
Who got charmed by seductive graves
I see these rags worn by homeless people
Then I close my eyes and reflect
I am acquainted with rags
I once saw these rags in my mother’s womb
They anticipated my birth, my breath and death
Today my heart wears rags that are still waiting to be knitted by humane hands of my forefathers land
We have beautiful sad songs unsung
Located in the bosom of wounded souls
Those who lost their loved ones by guns in political crimes and in moonless slums
Hear these songs recited by poets over esoteric drums
The laundry of this country is filled with rags that were once worn by our ancestors
When this African continent was colonized
Sold by common minds
In those old times
We know who tore the fabric
We conscentise with verbal needles to knit these rags
We no longer a nation of sub-humans, baboons and barbaric baffoons
Because even baboons do fall in love with their beauty like Narcissus
They genuflect on the banks of history
And bath faces with Robert Sobukhwe , Tsetsi Mashinini,Marcus Garvey and Steve Biko’ blood
Seeking for Black Conciousness
They let the blood to dribble
Wet their hairy bodies
They rise with the new dawn and fly
With broken wings in the cosmos with eyes transfixed to the soil
Sons of the soil
Enlightening the land of their forefathers
My blackness is no longer a carpet to stone
But a golden stepping stone
I am in need of a black pigmentation
So I exhume Kwame Nkrumah’s body
Skin his face
Situate it under my sole
It becomes my Black Stepping Stone
And throw my eyes beyond the rags of colonialism
Oppression
Bondage
Slavery
And Apartheid
These eyes dilate to see a new black fabric

Its That Moment
Its that moment you know you’ve stepped out and you have entered into love when it groans in your gut
Its that moment you step out of sense and make decisions in your sleep, because you feel like you’re swimming in love like you’re not on earth
Its that moment a door is closed and clothes and shoes are tossed, excitement taking over
Its when jerseys lay strewn, you see yourselves enter paradise, the stars shining and tears of joy flow when all the while you’re making a gruesome decision
Its that moment when you’re tickling, hips are thrusting and beds fold in then one of you hastens while you forget something
Because of the influence you’re under, you no longer have “coats” and you have no care for them.You don’t know you are slitting your own throats
Heavy breathing and under blankets.Its a clean war of love that you are deep in
You bask in that kraal of love while your heart sips in its water
Doors are tightly closed
When the journey is like this, a heathen can swear that God is love and treasure nature
Its that moment a man tricks a woman by saying he’s against the “coat”, it doesn’t please him, the ancestors didn’t use it “Here’s our Lotto, lets take a chance”
The audacity! You take chances where there are no millions.Can you not hear that you err ass you’re busy with the bum
Festivities! Lights are dimmed and while games are played till morning
Cries are let out, you’re stunned by ecstacy as your privates dance and birds and girls ululate not knowing what else to do
Its that moment promises of heaven and earth are made “Even in when I die a girl like you I’ll always love”
You’re in Canaan, the land of bees
By disregarding the “coat” you beckon danger
When this happens, angels underestimate/ undermine the pozie
A man will argue till dawn breaks like Nongwawuse saying his revelations can raise the dead
You can’t even see that you’re ruining things
Beware.Its the road to death you’re taking.You’re being lured
Its that moment alcohol drives and you’re carelss not knowing you’re digging your own grave

Its that moment in the morning you search below the waist searching for the “coat” under blankets
Then you’re not sure.You ask each other endless questions
This news that you did not use the “coat” shocks, frightens, stresses you to the point the stud/ladies man/Casanova goes out the window

You don’t want to tell anyone, you have not appetite and your own thoughts taunt you as you realise unprotected sex s a self-curse
You start to regret as a your heart thumps against your chest as you think of the repercussions. You want to hang yourself
Its that moment you decide to get tested as you expect death to sweep you away at anytime
You go to hospital and see patients waste away and you tell yourself that will happen to you
You curse women as you wait to see the doctor
Blood is taken, you think back to the day you didn’t use the coat and your mind is warped in deep thought
Your mind thinks here, thinks there
No time to beat yourself up.You are alone in this
You sit on the chair worried, your chest is shackled and the blood has been taken
You’re restless and your soul waits for your death, you can smell death
You’re sentenced by fear, you don’t know your beginning from your end
Admit, don’t deny.There’s no denying it.You didn’t know that day would have you breathing with difficulty
In this world, you cannot put your brain where your foot is and walk with it otherwise you’ll find yourself in a grave
Look at you, contracting HIV because of your lack of a brain
Months have passed and you don’t take your treatment.Instead you’re a slave to alcohol and people are watching
We keep saying life is rough when we’re the ones who kill themselves and by the way the devil has no power
This battle is your own.Stay strong and let life go on
Its that moment you’re imprisoned by your thoughts and you think back on the day alcohol influenced you
You’re overwhelmed and this virus eats away at you,you become thin and you keep cursing life
You keep saying life is about trying while you’re a bone in the grave
Thought break through the noise of the pandemic that destroys your lineage
You beg the Creator to take you, you have even given up on eternal life
You can’t walk or eat on your own.Your friends visit your bedside encouraging you to hold on
Those on the sidelines gasp, they want to ask questions but can see the virus if eating away at you
Its that moment your mother cries above you
Gutted she cries “God you’re my fotress even when the future id bleak, one day it will be okay”
You know the angel of death is on his way to fetch you
You shrivel like a dying flower as sickness engulfs you
Believers await to sing funeral hymns when God releases you
You’re are healed
Thorns are removed
Its the moment the coffin is lowered
Tears flower from the faces of those who have loved you
And that is the end of you

Its That Moment
Its that moment you know you’ve stepped out and you have entered into love when it groans in your gut
Its that moment you step out of sense and make decisions in your sleep, because you feel like you’re swimming in love like you’re not on earth
Its that moment a door is closed and clothes and shoes are tossed, excitement taking over
Its when jerseys lay strewn, you see yourselves enter paradise, the stars shining and tears of joy flow when all the while you’re making a gruesome decision
Its that moment when you’re tickling, hips are thrusting and beds fold in then one of you hastens while you forget something
Because of the influence you’re under, you no longer have “coats” and you have no care for them.You don’t know you are slitting your own throats
Heavy breathing and under blankets.Its a clean war of love that you are deep in
You bask in that kraal of love while your heart sips in its water
Doors are tightly closed
When the journey is like this, a heathen can swear that God is love and treasure nature
Its that moment a man tricks a woman by saying he’s against the “coat”, it doesn’t please him, the ancestors didn’t use it “Here’s our Lotto, lets take a chance”
The audacity! You take chances where there are no millions.Can you not hear that you err ass you’re busy with the bum
Festivities! Lights are dimmed and while games are played till morning
Cries are let out, you’re stunned by ecstacy as your privates dance and birds and girls ululate not knowing what else to do
Its that moment promises of heaven and earth are made “Even in when I die a girl like you I’ll always love”
You’re in Canaan, the land of bees
By disregarding the “coat” you beckon danger
When this happens, angels underestimate/ undermine the pozie
A man will argue till dawn breaks like Nongwawuse saying his revelations can raise the dead
You can’t even see that you’re ruining things
Beware.Its the road to death you’re taking.You’re being lured
Its that moment alcohol drives and you’re carelss not knowing you’re digging your own grave

Its that moment in the morning you search below the waist searching for the “coat” under blankets
Then you’re not sure.You ask each other endless questions
This news that you did not use the “coat” shocks, frightens, stresses you to the point the stud/ladies man/Casanova goes out the window

You don’t want to tell anyone, you have not appetite and your own thoughts taunt you as you realise unprotected sex s a self-curse
You start to regret as a your heart thumps against your chest as you think of the repercussions. You want to hang yourself
Its that moment you decide to get tested as you expect death to sweep you away at anytime
You go to hospital and see patients waste away and you tell yourself that will happen to you
You curse women as you wait to see the doctor
Blood is taken, you think back to the day you didn’t use the coat and your mind is warped in deep thought
Your mind thinks here, thinks there
No time to beat yourself up.You are alone in this
You sit on the chair worried, your chest is shackled and the blood has been taken
You’re restless and your soul waits for your death, you can smell death
You’re sentenced by fear, you don’t know your beginning from your end
Admit, don’t deny.There’s no denying it.You didn’t know that day would have you breathing with difficulty
In this world, you cannot put your brain where your foot is and walk with it otherwise you’ll find yourself in a grave
Look at you, contracting HIV because of your lack of a brain
Months have passed and you don’t take your treatment.Instead you’re a slave to alcohol and people are watching
We keep saying life is rough when we’re the ones who kill themselves and by the way the devil has no power
This battle is your own.Stay strong and let life go on
Its that moment you’re imprisoned by your thoughts and you think back on the day alcohol influenced you
You’re overwhelmed and this virus eats away at you,you become thin and you keep cursing life
You keep saying life is about trying while you’re a bone in the grave
Thought break through the noise of the pandemic that destroys your lineage
You beg the Creator to take you, you have even given up on eternal life
You can’t walk or eat on your own.Your friends visit your bedside encouraging you to hold on
Those on the sidelines gasp, they want to ask questions but can see the virus if eating away at you
Its that moment your mother cries above you
Gutted she cries “God you’re my fotress even when the future id bleak, one day it will be okay”
You know the angel of death is on his way to fetch you
You shrivel like a dying flower as sickness engulfs you
Believers await to sing funeral hymns when God releases you
You’re are healed
Thorns are removed
Its the moment the coffin is lowered
Tears flower from the faces of those who have loved you
And that is the end of you

Biography

Lwanda Sindaphi is an actor, playwright, theatre director and Xhosa poet. He is a graduate of New Africa Theatre Academy and Magnet Theatre. In 2011, he won the Cape Town Drama for Life Lover + Another Poetry Slam and competed in the national finals in Johannesburg. In 2013, he won the most promising director award at the Zabalazaa Theatre Festival at the Baxter Theatre Centre and is a co-founder of Lingua Franca Spoken Word Movement.

Lwanda

Biography

Lwanda Sindaphi is an actor, playwright, theatre director and Xhosa poet. He is a graduate of New Africa Theatre Academy and Magnet Theatre. In 2011, he won the Cape Town Drama for Life Lover + Another Poetry Slam and competed in the national finals in Johannesburg. In 2013, he won the most promising director award at the Zabalazaa Theatre Festival at the Baxter Theatre Centre and is a co-founder of Lingua Franca Spoken Word Movement.

Only time will tell

Only time will tell

If I was born to live
Rise above the stars
Drown in the river of nowhere
Get masticated by crocodiles
Be an outcast in the planet
If my smile was born to last
Only time will tell

I stare to the future with glowing pupils
Willing to see a bulb preceding my giant steps
Illuminating the darkness ahead of me
Knowing a brighter future is not guaranteed
If I was born to meet my dreams
Open hollows to see oranges across the sea
Replacing all the lemons I have tasted before
If I was born to befriend a fertile land
Only time will tell

We are extremely anguished characters
People of color
Orbiting around history
Dreaming to be free someday
Narrating our stories with unfinished tongues that are still waiting
To be glued by our forefathers’ words of wisdom
We were shackled in the slave coffle
Kidnapped to sail through a raging sea
Leaving the land of the burnt skin people
400 years ago
If Africa is the cradle of mankind
Only time will tell

We were told that we are genetically inferior
Uncivilized creatures on earth
Culturally barbaric
Cursed by Noah in the bible
Descendants of Ham’s blackness
Born to be paupers, serfs, slaves and prisoners
If we really evolved from apes
Only time will tell

If God is black or white
Only time will tell

If Steve Bantu Biko killed himself
Only time will tell

If Africans were born to feed out of gangsterism
Hustle in dark corners
Spines aching
Because of being sex workers
Thrown in the ghetto dustbins to rot
And get psychologically and spiritually demolished by demons
If we were born to be thugs, prostitutes, barbarians, junkies, bitches and witches
Whose soul congest jail cells
If we were born to live for something or nothing
Only time will tell

Apartheid Rags
Lambs will have to sacrifice the wool
Shear it for us
African sons and daughters who embody their spirits with rags
Rags that are filled with dust
They are like bushes cut down by hurricanes
Logs, leaves, stems and roots lying everywhere
Wounded wounds are howling with silent voices
But the ears of this country are sealed
We clothe wounds with dishonest smiles concealing the origins of pain
We feel ashamed to commune our Negroid faces to the world
Because there are people who look at us as filthy beggars
I lock my spirit in solitude
And soliloquize riddles over indigenous rhythms
Birthing new seasons
Knitting a new fabric
New clothes to cover rags worn by this black nation
Cardiac rags
Hearts that had been brutally butchered by apartheid abattoirs
We are the children whose hearts are covered with apartheid rags
But we become disillusioned by mediocrity
Can’t we buy a new fabric?
New clothes
Or build a bulwark to protect hearts have been bulldozed
When the moon crawled
When we threw stones
Escaping tombstones
Located in the hands of racist cruel cops.
Now Azania has been depraved
When you butchered Black, Indian and Colored slaves
Who got charmed by seductive graves
I see these rags worn by homeless people
Then I close my eyes and reflect
I am acquainted with rags
I once saw these rags in my mother’s womb
They anticipated my birth, my breath and death
Today my heart wears rags that are still waiting to be knitted by humane hands of my forefathers land
We have beautiful sad songs unsung
Located in the bosom of wounded souls
Those who lost their loved ones by guns in political crimes and in moonless slums
Hear these songs recited by poets over esoteric drums
The laundry of this country is filled with rags that were once worn by our ancestors
When this African continent was colonized
Sold by common minds
In those old times
We know who tore the fabric
We conscentise with verbal needles to knit these rags
We no longer a nation of sub-humans, baboons and barbaric baffoons
Because even baboons do fall in love with their beauty like Narcissus
They genuflect on the banks of history
And bath faces with Robert Sobukhwe , Tsetsi Mashinini,Marcus Garvey and Steve Biko’ blood
Seeking for Black Conciousness
They let the blood to dribble
Wet their hairy bodies
They rise with the new dawn and fly
With broken wings in the cosmos with eyes transfixed to the soil
Sons of the soil
Enlightening the land of their forefathers
My blackness is no longer a carpet to stone
But a golden stepping stone
I am in need of a black pigmentation
So I exhume Kwame Nkrumah’s body
Skin his face
Situate it under my sole
It becomes my Black Stepping Stone
And throw my eyes beyond the rags of colonialism
Oppression
Bondage
Slavery
And Apartheid
These eyes dilate to see a new black fabric

If I was born to live
Rise above the stars
Drown in the river of nowhere
Get masticated by crocodiles
Be an outcast in the planet
If my smile was born to last
Only time will tell

I stare to the future with glowing pupils
Willing to see a bulb preceding my giant steps
Illuminating the darkness ahead of me
Knowing a brighter future is not guaranteed
If I was born to meet my dreams
Open hollows to see oranges across the sea
Replacing all the lemons I have tasted before
If I was born to befriend a fertile land
Only time will tell

We are extremely anguished characters
People of color
Orbiting around history
Dreaming to be free someday
Narrating our stories with unfinished tongues that are still waiting
To be glued by our forefathers’ words of wisdom
We were shackled in the slave coffle
Kidnapped to sail through a raging sea
Leaving the land of the burnt skin people
400 years ago
If Africa is the cradle of mankind
Only time will tell

We were told that we are genetically inferior
Uncivilized creatures on earth
Culturally barbaric
Cursed by Noah in the bible
Descendants of Ham’s blackness
Born to be paupers, serfs, slaves and prisoners
If we really evolved from apes
Only time will tell

If God is black or white
Only time will tell

If Steve Bantu Biko killed himself
Only time will tell

If Africans were born to feed out of gangsterism
Hustle in dark corners
Spines aching
Because of being sex workers
Thrown in the ghetto dustbins to rot
And get psychologically and spiritually demolished by demons
If we were born to be thugs, prostitutes, barbarians, junkies, bitches and witches
Whose soul congest jail cells
If we were born to live for something or nothing
Only time will tell

Apartheid Rags
Lambs will have to sacrifice the wool
Shear it for us
African sons and daughters who embody their spirits with rags
Rags that are filled with dust
They are like bushes cut down by hurricanes
Logs, leaves, stems and roots lying everywhere
Wounded wounds are howling with silent voices
But the ears of this country are sealed
We clothe wounds with dishonest smiles concealing the origins of pain
We feel ashamed to commune our Negroid faces to the world
Because there are people who look at us as filthy beggars
I lock my spirit in solitude
And soliloquize riddles over indigenous rhythms
Birthing new seasons
Knitting a new fabric
New clothes to cover rags worn by this black nation
Cardiac rags
Hearts that had been brutally butchered by apartheid abattoirs
We are the children whose hearts are covered with apartheid rags
But we become disillusioned by mediocrity
Can’t we buy a new fabric?
New clothes
Or build a bulwark to protect hearts have been bulldozed
When the moon crawled
When we threw stones
Escaping tombstones
Located in the hands of racist cruel cops.
Now Azania has been depraved
When you butchered Black, Indian and Colored slaves
Who got charmed by seductive graves
I see these rags worn by homeless people
Then I close my eyes and reflect
I am acquainted with rags
I once saw these rags in my mother’s womb
They anticipated my birth, my breath and death
Today my heart wears rags that are still waiting to be knitted by humane hands of my forefathers land
We have beautiful sad songs unsung
Located in the bosom of wounded souls
Those who lost their loved ones by guns in political crimes and in moonless slums
Hear these songs recited by poets over esoteric drums
The laundry of this country is filled with rags that were once worn by our ancestors
When this African continent was colonized
Sold by common minds
In those old times
We know who tore the fabric
We conscentise with verbal needles to knit these rags
We no longer a nation of sub-humans, baboons and barbaric baffoons
Because even baboons do fall in love with their beauty like Narcissus
They genuflect on the banks of history
And bath faces with Robert Sobukhwe , Tsetsi Mashinini,Marcus Garvey and Steve Biko’ blood
Seeking for Black Conciousness
They let the blood to dribble
Wet their hairy bodies
They rise with the new dawn and fly
With broken wings in the cosmos with eyes transfixed to the soil
Sons of the soil
Enlightening the land of their forefathers
My blackness is no longer a carpet to stone
But a golden stepping stone
I am in need of a black pigmentation
So I exhume Kwame Nkrumah’s body
Skin his face
Situate it under my sole
It becomes my Black Stepping Stone
And throw my eyes beyond the rags of colonialism
Oppression
Bondage
Slavery
And Apartheid
These eyes dilate to see a new black fabric

Its That Moment
Its that moment you know you’ve stepped out and you have entered into love when it groans in your gut
Its that moment you step out of sense and make decisions in your sleep, because you feel like you’re swimming in love like you’re not on earth
Its that moment a door is closed and clothes and shoes are tossed, excitement taking over
Its when jerseys lay strewn, you see yourselves enter paradise, the stars shining and tears of joy flow when all the while you’re making a gruesome decision
Its that moment when you’re tickling, hips are thrusting and beds fold in then one of you hastens while you forget something
Because of the influence you’re under, you no longer have “coats” and you have no care for them.You don’t know you are slitting your own throats
Heavy breathing and under blankets.Its a clean war of love that you are deep in
You bask in that kraal of love while your heart sips in its water
Doors are tightly closed
When the journey is like this, a heathen can swear that God is love and treasure nature
Its that moment a man tricks a woman by saying he’s against the “coat”, it doesn’t please him, the ancestors didn’t use it “Here’s our Lotto, lets take a chance”
The audacity! You take chances where there are no millions.Can you not hear that you err ass you’re busy with the bum
Festivities! Lights are dimmed and while games are played till morning
Cries are let out, you’re stunned by ecstacy as your privates dance and birds and girls ululate not knowing what else to do
Its that moment promises of heaven and earth are made “Even in when I die a girl like you I’ll always love”
You’re in Canaan, the land of bees
By disregarding the “coat” you beckon danger
When this happens, angels underestimate/ undermine the pozie
A man will argue till dawn breaks like Nongwawuse saying his revelations can raise the dead
You can’t even see that you’re ruining things
Beware.Its the road to death you’re taking.You’re being lured
Its that moment alcohol drives and you’re carelss not knowing you’re digging your own grave

Its that moment in the morning you search below the waist searching for the “coat” under blankets
Then you’re not sure.You ask each other endless questions
This news that you did not use the “coat” shocks, frightens, stresses you to the point the stud/ladies man/Casanova goes out the window

You don’t want to tell anyone, you have not appetite and your own thoughts taunt you as you realise unprotected sex s a self-curse
You start to regret as a your heart thumps against your chest as you think of the repercussions. You want to hang yourself
Its that moment you decide to get tested as you expect death to sweep you away at anytime
You go to hospital and see patients waste away and you tell yourself that will happen to you
You curse women as you wait to see the doctor
Blood is taken, you think back to the day you didn’t use the coat and your mind is warped in deep thought
Your mind thinks here, thinks there
No time to beat yourself up.You are alone in this
You sit on the chair worried, your chest is shackled and the blood has been taken
You’re restless and your soul waits for your death, you can smell death
You’re sentenced by fear, you don’t know your beginning from your end
Admit, don’t deny.There’s no denying it.You didn’t know that day would have you breathing with difficulty
In this world, you cannot put your brain where your foot is and walk with it otherwise you’ll find yourself in a grave
Look at you, contracting HIV because of your lack of a brain
Months have passed and you don’t take your treatment.Instead you’re a slave to alcohol and people are watching
We keep saying life is rough when we’re the ones who kill themselves and by the way the devil has no power
This battle is your own.Stay strong and let life go on
Its that moment you’re imprisoned by your thoughts and you think back on the day alcohol influenced you
You’re overwhelmed and this virus eats away at you,you become thin and you keep cursing life
You keep saying life is about trying while you’re a bone in the grave
Thought break through the noise of the pandemic that destroys your lineage
You beg the Creator to take you, you have even given up on eternal life
You can’t walk or eat on your own.Your friends visit your bedside encouraging you to hold on
Those on the sidelines gasp, they want to ask questions but can see the virus if eating away at you
Its that moment your mother cries above you
Gutted she cries “God you’re my fotress even when the future id bleak, one day it will be okay”
You know the angel of death is on his way to fetch you
You shrivel like a dying flower as sickness engulfs you
Believers await to sing funeral hymns when God releases you
You’re are healed
Thorns are removed
Its the moment the coffin is lowered
Tears flower from the faces of those who have loved you
And that is the end of you

Its That Moment
Its that moment you know you’ve stepped out and you have entered into love when it groans in your gut
Its that moment you step out of sense and make decisions in your sleep, because you feel like you’re swimming in love like you’re not on earth
Its that moment a door is closed and clothes and shoes are tossed, excitement taking over
Its when jerseys lay strewn, you see yourselves enter paradise, the stars shining and tears of joy flow when all the while you’re making a gruesome decision
Its that moment when you’re tickling, hips are thrusting and beds fold in then one of you hastens while you forget something
Because of the influence you’re under, you no longer have “coats” and you have no care for them.You don’t know you are slitting your own throats
Heavy breathing and under blankets.Its a clean war of love that you are deep in
You bask in that kraal of love while your heart sips in its water
Doors are tightly closed
When the journey is like this, a heathen can swear that God is love and treasure nature
Its that moment a man tricks a woman by saying he’s against the “coat”, it doesn’t please him, the ancestors didn’t use it “Here’s our Lotto, lets take a chance”
The audacity! You take chances where there are no millions.Can you not hear that you err ass you’re busy with the bum
Festivities! Lights are dimmed and while games are played till morning
Cries are let out, you’re stunned by ecstacy as your privates dance and birds and girls ululate not knowing what else to do
Its that moment promises of heaven and earth are made “Even in when I die a girl like you I’ll always love”
You’re in Canaan, the land of bees
By disregarding the “coat” you beckon danger
When this happens, angels underestimate/ undermine the pozie
A man will argue till dawn breaks like Nongwawuse saying his revelations can raise the dead
You can’t even see that you’re ruining things
Beware.Its the road to death you’re taking.You’re being lured
Its that moment alcohol drives and you’re carelss not knowing you’re digging your own grave

Its that moment in the morning you search below the waist searching for the “coat” under blankets
Then you’re not sure.You ask each other endless questions
This news that you did not use the “coat” shocks, frightens, stresses you to the point the stud/ladies man/Casanova goes out the window

You don’t want to tell anyone, you have not appetite and your own thoughts taunt you as you realise unprotected sex s a self-curse
You start to regret as a your heart thumps against your chest as you think of the repercussions. You want to hang yourself
Its that moment you decide to get tested as you expect death to sweep you away at anytime
You go to hospital and see patients waste away and you tell yourself that will happen to you
You curse women as you wait to see the doctor
Blood is taken, you think back to the day you didn’t use the coat and your mind is warped in deep thought
Your mind thinks here, thinks there
No time to beat yourself up.You are alone in this
You sit on the chair worried, your chest is shackled and the blood has been taken
You’re restless and your soul waits for your death, you can smell death
You’re sentenced by fear, you don’t know your beginning from your end
Admit, don’t deny.There’s no denying it.You didn’t know that day would have you breathing with difficulty
In this world, you cannot put your brain where your foot is and walk with it otherwise you’ll find yourself in a grave
Look at you, contracting HIV because of your lack of a brain
Months have passed and you don’t take your treatment.Instead you’re a slave to alcohol and people are watching
We keep saying life is rough when we’re the ones who kill themselves and by the way the devil has no power
This battle is your own.Stay strong and let life go on
Its that moment you’re imprisoned by your thoughts and you think back on the day alcohol influenced you
You’re overwhelmed and this virus eats away at you,you become thin and you keep cursing life
You keep saying life is about trying while you’re a bone in the grave
Thought break through the noise of the pandemic that destroys your lineage
You beg the Creator to take you, you have even given up on eternal life
You can’t walk or eat on your own.Your friends visit your bedside encouraging you to hold on
Those on the sidelines gasp, they want to ask questions but can see the virus if eating away at you
Its that moment your mother cries above you
Gutted she cries “God you’re my fotress even when the future id bleak, one day it will be okay”
You know the angel of death is on his way to fetch you
You shrivel like a dying flower as sickness engulfs you
Believers await to sing funeral hymns when God releases you
You’re are healed
Thorns are removed
Its the moment the coffin is lowered
Tears flower from the faces of those who have loved you
And that is the end of you

How does this featured poem make you feel?

Only time will tell

Only time will tell

If I was born to live
Rise above the stars
Drown in the river of nowhere
Get masticated by crocodiles
Be an outcast in the planet
If my smile was born to last
Only time will tell

I stare to the future with glowing pupils
Willing to see a bulb preceding my giant steps
Illuminating the darkness ahead of me
Knowing a brighter future is not guaranteed
If I was born to meet my dreams
Open hollows to see oranges across the sea
Replacing all the lemons I have tasted before
If I was born to befriend a fertile land
Only time will tell

We are extremely anguished characters
People of color
Orbiting around history
Dreaming to be free someday
Narrating our stories with unfinished tongues that are still waiting
To be glued by our forefathers’ words of wisdom
We were shackled in the slave coffle
Kidnapped to sail through a raging sea
Leaving the land of the burnt skin people
400 years ago
If Africa is the cradle of mankind
Only time will tell

We were told that we are genetically inferior
Uncivilized creatures on earth
Culturally barbaric
Cursed by Noah in the bible
Descendants of Ham’s blackness
Born to be paupers, serfs, slaves and prisoners
If we really evolved from apes
Only time will tell

If God is black or white
Only time will tell

If Steve Bantu Biko killed himself
Only time will tell

If Africans were born to feed out of gangsterism
Hustle in dark corners
Spines aching
Because of being sex workers
Thrown in the ghetto dustbins to rot
And get psychologically and spiritually demolished by demons
If we were born to be thugs, prostitutes, barbarians, junkies, bitches and witches
Whose soul congest jail cells
If we were born to live for something or nothing
Only time will tell

Apartheid Rags
Lambs will have to sacrifice the wool
Shear it for us
African sons and daughters who embody their spirits with rags
Rags that are filled with dust
They are like bushes cut down by hurricanes
Logs, leaves, stems and roots lying everywhere
Wounded wounds are howling with silent voices
But the ears of this country are sealed
We clothe wounds with dishonest smiles concealing the origins of pain
We feel ashamed to commune our Negroid faces to the world
Because there are people who look at us as filthy beggars
I lock my spirit in solitude
And soliloquize riddles over indigenous rhythms
Birthing new seasons
Knitting a new fabric
New clothes to cover rags worn by this black nation
Cardiac rags
Hearts that had been brutally butchered by apartheid abattoirs
We are the children whose hearts are covered with apartheid rags
But we become disillusioned by mediocrity
Can’t we buy a new fabric?
New clothes
Or build a bulwark to protect hearts have been bulldozed
When the moon crawled
When we threw stones
Escaping tombstones
Located in the hands of racist cruel cops.
Now Azania has been depraved
When you butchered Black, Indian and Colored slaves
Who got charmed by seductive graves
I see these rags worn by homeless people
Then I close my eyes and reflect
I am acquainted with rags
I once saw these rags in my mother’s womb
They anticipated my birth, my breath and death
Today my heart wears rags that are still waiting to be knitted by humane hands of my forefathers land
We have beautiful sad songs unsung
Located in the bosom of wounded souls
Those who lost their loved ones by guns in political crimes and in moonless slums
Hear these songs recited by poets over esoteric drums
The laundry of this country is filled with rags that were once worn by our ancestors
When this African continent was colonized
Sold by common minds
In those old times
We know who tore the fabric
We conscentise with verbal needles to knit these rags
We no longer a nation of sub-humans, baboons and barbaric baffoons
Because even baboons do fall in love with their beauty like Narcissus
They genuflect on the banks of history
And bath faces with Robert Sobukhwe , Tsetsi Mashinini,Marcus Garvey and Steve Biko’ blood
Seeking for Black Conciousness
They let the blood to dribble
Wet their hairy bodies
They rise with the new dawn and fly
With broken wings in the cosmos with eyes transfixed to the soil
Sons of the soil
Enlightening the land of their forefathers
My blackness is no longer a carpet to stone
But a golden stepping stone
I am in need of a black pigmentation
So I exhume Kwame Nkrumah’s body
Skin his face
Situate it under my sole
It becomes my Black Stepping Stone
And throw my eyes beyond the rags of colonialism
Oppression
Bondage
Slavery
And Apartheid
These eyes dilate to see a new black fabric

If I was born to live
Rise above the stars
Drown in the river of nowhere
Get masticated by crocodiles
Be an outcast in the planet
If my smile was born to last
Only time will tell

I stare to the future with glowing pupils
Willing to see a bulb preceding my giant steps
Illuminating the darkness ahead of me
Knowing a brighter future is not guaranteed
If I was born to meet my dreams
Open hollows to see oranges across the sea
Replacing all the lemons I have tasted before
If I was born to befriend a fertile land
Only time will tell

We are extremely anguished characters
People of color
Orbiting around history
Dreaming to be free someday
Narrating our stories with unfinished tongues that are still waiting
To be glued by our forefathers’ words of wisdom
We were shackled in the slave coffle
Kidnapped to sail through a raging sea
Leaving the land of the burnt skin people
400 years ago
If Africa is the cradle of mankind
Only time will tell

We were told that we are genetically inferior
Uncivilized creatures on earth
Culturally barbaric
Cursed by Noah in the bible
Descendants of Ham’s blackness
Born to be paupers, serfs, slaves and prisoners
If we really evolved from apes
Only time will tell

If God is black or white
Only time will tell

If Steve Bantu Biko killed himself
Only time will tell

If Africans were born to feed out of gangsterism
Hustle in dark corners
Spines aching
Because of being sex workers
Thrown in the ghetto dustbins to rot
And get psychologically and spiritually demolished by demons
If we were born to be thugs, prostitutes, barbarians, junkies, bitches and witches
Whose soul congest jail cells
If we were born to live for something or nothing
Only time will tell

Apartheid Rags
Lambs will have to sacrifice the wool
Shear it for us
African sons and daughters who embody their spirits with rags
Rags that are filled with dust
They are like bushes cut down by hurricanes
Logs, leaves, stems and roots lying everywhere
Wounded wounds are howling with silent voices
But the ears of this country are sealed
We clothe wounds with dishonest smiles concealing the origins of pain
We feel ashamed to commune our Negroid faces to the world
Because there are people who look at us as filthy beggars
I lock my spirit in solitude
And soliloquize riddles over indigenous rhythms
Birthing new seasons
Knitting a new fabric
New clothes to cover rags worn by this black nation
Cardiac rags
Hearts that had been brutally butchered by apartheid abattoirs
We are the children whose hearts are covered with apartheid rags
But we become disillusioned by mediocrity
Can’t we buy a new fabric?
New clothes
Or build a bulwark to protect hearts have been bulldozed
When the moon crawled
When we threw stones
Escaping tombstones
Located in the hands of racist cruel cops.
Now Azania has been depraved
When you butchered Black, Indian and Colored slaves
Who got charmed by seductive graves
I see these rags worn by homeless people
Then I close my eyes and reflect
I am acquainted with rags
I once saw these rags in my mother’s womb
They anticipated my birth, my breath and death
Today my heart wears rags that are still waiting to be knitted by humane hands of my forefathers land
We have beautiful sad songs unsung
Located in the bosom of wounded souls
Those who lost their loved ones by guns in political crimes and in moonless slums
Hear these songs recited by poets over esoteric drums
The laundry of this country is filled with rags that were once worn by our ancestors
When this African continent was colonized
Sold by common minds
In those old times
We know who tore the fabric
We conscentise with verbal needles to knit these rags
We no longer a nation of sub-humans, baboons and barbaric baffoons
Because even baboons do fall in love with their beauty like Narcissus
They genuflect on the banks of history
And bath faces with Robert Sobukhwe , Tsetsi Mashinini,Marcus Garvey and Steve Biko’ blood
Seeking for Black Conciousness
They let the blood to dribble
Wet their hairy bodies
They rise with the new dawn and fly
With broken wings in the cosmos with eyes transfixed to the soil
Sons of the soil
Enlightening the land of their forefathers
My blackness is no longer a carpet to stone
But a golden stepping stone
I am in need of a black pigmentation
So I exhume Kwame Nkrumah’s body
Skin his face
Situate it under my sole
It becomes my Black Stepping Stone
And throw my eyes beyond the rags of colonialism
Oppression
Bondage
Slavery
And Apartheid
These eyes dilate to see a new black fabric